


Lost My Mind in a Coffee Shop

by betheflame



Series: Shorts & Drabbles 2019 [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, M/M, Meet-Cute, Minor Bucky Barnes/Natasha Romanov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-07-30 07:16:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20093407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betheflame/pseuds/betheflame
Summary: “Boyo,” Bucky muttered to his best friend. “I swear to God that if you don’t ask that man for his number soon, I will create a Grindr profile for you and you will not like it.”Steve rolled his eyes. “I am here to finish grading, not hit on men.”“Can you not do both?” Natasha smirked. “Nearly tenured, historical genius, feels like something you should be able to multitask.”&&&In which Steve is a history professor and Tony's an engineering one and Bucky owns the joint where they have their meet cute.





	Lost My Mind in a Coffee Shop

**Author's Note:**

> Shout out to the real [Dichotomy](https://www.dichotomycs.com/) in Waco, Texas, which served as the inspiration for mine. If you ever go, please get their It Takes Two to Mango and think of Bucky sipping it while rolling his eyes at Steve. 
> 
> This is just an absolute fluffernutter of a fic, designed to bring happy, fuzzy feelings, because I needed a story like this and figured you might too. Fill for Stony Bingo 2019: Free Space.
> 
> Also, I know everything I learned about engineering I learned from Tony Stark, so all grains of all salts and mea culpas.

“Boyo,” Bucky muttered to his best friend. “I swear to God that if you don’t ask that man for his number soon, I will create a Grindr profile for you and you will not like it.”

Steve rolled his eyes. “I am here to finish grading, not hit on men.”

“Can you not do both?” Natasha, Bucky’s head bartender/barista and wife, smirked. “Nearly tenured, historical genius, feels like something you should be able to multitask.”

Steve simply picked up his purple pen - he never graded in red, too harsh - and flipped his middle finger up at her. 

Bucky, who hadn’t known when to stop since easily 1994, continued. “He is single.”

“You know this for sure,” Steve murmured, unable to stop himself. “Not like that visiting French professor?”

“I asked the kid,” Bucky replied. “His TA.”

“The one who looks like a puppy?”

“Peter, yeah,” Bucky stepped away for a second to take someone else’s order and then was back to Steve. “He spilled all the tea.”

“No,” Steve waved his pen at Bucky. “You are old, you are white, you are male. We are not appropriating.” 

Bucky rolled his eyes. “Calm down, Dr. Grandpa, fine. He filled me in on Short, Snarky & Handsome over there.”

Nat called Bucky’s name and the man sauntered down the bar away from Steve. Dichotomy was the best coffee shop in Middlebury, Massachusetts that also happened to be a cocktail bar after 6pm each night. Bucky and Steve had both grown up not in Mass, which they were clear to point out to anyone who ever expected them to support the Pats or the Sox, but when Steve got a job at Central College in the town, Bucky decided to follow him and found work at a coffee shop that was then called Java the Hut. 

When the owner of the Hut retired, Bucky bought it out and turned it into Dichotomy. Central had about 15,000 folks at it and Middlebury was one of those college towns where life revolved around the college more than locals would like to admit. The place reflected that. Local art hung on the walls, pets were welcome on the porches, the couches were all donated from various homes in the area, and all the baked goods were made in-house. Most evenings found the bar packed with a combination of students trying to study, TAs attempting to grade, and couples on dates. 

This night was no exception, but Bucky had still stayed away far too long after his previous pronouncement. Steve enacted best friend privileges and got behind the bar. 

“Nope,” Bucky called from his end as Steve helped himself to more Glenlivet. 

“Then get your ass back here,” Steve replied. “Finish your story.”

“Oh,” Bucky raised an eyebrow saucily as Steve took his seat. “I thought we weren’t here to hit on men.”

“I’m not, I’m gathering intel.”

Bucky glared at him.

“Okay, so we’re doing this. Fine. Tell me everything.”

There was little in the world Bucky Barnes loved more than gossip. “So, his name is Tony. He’s been tenured since he was 24, twenty fucking four, and is, according to the puppy, essentially a god of engineering. He first got tenure at MIT, no shit, and then left because of some hissy fit he threw over the restrictions they were putting on his lab. Been here about, oh, four years. The reason we haven’t seen him around before this is that he usually only came to campus to teach the opening class and the closing class and did everything else via webcam, but the provost put some sort of restriction on him, so he’s here this semester.”

“Of course he did,” Steve said. Fury had very particular ideas about how Central should be run.

“You know the Starks? The techy Vanderbilts? He’s one of them. So, not sure why he chose to teach college. Head injury, maybe?”

“Fuck you, you shitstain,” Steve laughed. “Some of us love teaching.”

“Steven,” Nat interrupted as she brushed by. “10% of your job is teaching.”

Steve grumbled an agreement but did not feel like getting into the particular politics of his job so he motioned to Bucky to continue. 

“Anyway, Puppy says the entire department is slightly scared of him, absent minded prof type of situation, and evidently has the people skills of a highly functioning robot, and is an absolutely exacting ass of a prof, but if he chooses you as a TA, you are set for life.”

“So, Puppy, no we’re not doing this,” Steve shook his head. “_Peter_, is happy?”

Bucky nodded. “He seems-”

“Genius incoming,” Nat whispered as she flew back by with a gin and tonic in hand.

Within a moment, Steve felt the air next to him shift as Tony took the empty barstool to his left. “Hi,” the brunette said. “I’m Tony and I figure if you sit by yourself at my favorite bar each night, we should know each other.”

As an opener, Steve had heard worse. “I’m Steve,” he put out his hand for Tony to shake, trying to ignore the fissure of electricity that raced up his arm when Tony clasped his hand. “I’m only here because someone has to keep that idiot in line.” He pointed to Bucky with his pen. 

A look Steve couldn’t quite place flashed over Tony’s face. “Boyfriend?”

Steve chuckled. “His wife over there could easily kill me with her thumb. No, best friends since we were in diapers.”

The look that crossed the handsome man’s face after that statement was much easier to place - relief. “Are those essays?” Tony continued. “Do you teach at Central?”

Steve nodded. “They are and I do. History. My World History seminar class had to pick a historical figure and tell me how the world would be different if they had never lived.”

“Oh yeah?” Tony looked intrigued and settled himself further into the seat. Within a moment, Natasha placed a drink in front of Tony with a wink to Steve. “What’s the most intriguing proposition?”

“Of all time?” Steve grinned. “A girl argued that the Protestant Reformation would not have happened without Pius X. This semester’s is probably the argument that the 19th Amendment would have passed significantly later if not for the popularity of Jane Austen’s novels among the rich, white women of America.”

“Damn,” Tony swore. “That’s more creative than I thought history kids were capable of.”

Steve felt his proverbial hackles rise. “Yes, because _engineering students_ are known far and wide for their creativity.”

“So you know who I am,” Tony responded, not addressing Steve’s point. Tony’s eyes shifted around the room rapidly, as though the idea that Steve knew who he was wasn’t exactly welcome.

_Interesting_. Steve pointed to Bucky. “Somehow, he knows everyone in this town.”

“Well, being the only coffee shop opened past 7, plus the booze, and those cheesecake brownies, he’s basically our secular god.”

Steve groaned. “Please do not tell him that. He is such a pain as it is.”

Tony laughed, a rich sound that poured over Steve’s skin like water on a parched land and he had to shift on the stool in a futile attempt at alleviating pressure from his dick. “Between you and me, handsome, I promise.”

Steve grinned back and the pair held gazes for a minute. 

“Dinner?” Tony blurted. “Tomorrow?”

Steve’s face fell. “I teach a night class on Thursdays.”

Tony checked his watch, and blinked back at Steve. “Now?”

Steve worried his lip and looked at the stack of grading and then back up at the man he’d been fantasizing about for the better part of a month. “The Frying Pan, out on 193. Coffee is terrible but they do a decent apple pie.”

“See you in twenty,” Tony grinned and sauntered out the door. 

Steve sat for a minute and blinked rapidly, as though trying to process what had just happened. 

“What the fuck are you waiting for, you absolute loon,” Nat called from the end of the bar. “Get out of here!”

____________________________

“There,” Steve breathed as Tony did that thing with his tongue. “There, yes, hi, yes, thank you, yes.

One of Tony’s favorite things about having sex with Steve was that, in the middle of everything else, he always managed to be polite. It was Tony’s new life goal to destroy Steve so intensely that the polite would die, but they were only four months in. He had some time. 

“Baby,” Tony breathed into Steve’s skin, “just let go.”

To say that Tony was upset when Fury forced his hand over the summer was an understatement. He’d gone on a four day bender he only vaguely remembered details from and was fished out of a hotel room in Detroit - do not ask how he got there - by his best friends Pepper and Rhodey. 

_“Tones,” Rhodey had said with zero pity for Tony’s hangover. “It is technically your job. Your job for which you don’t collect your paycheck, I know, but your job nonetheless, and unless you want to start answering to the board for your experiments-”_

_“Never.”_

_“-then Central’s condition for letting you run a rogue lab on their property is that you teach three classes a semester and that you do it in person. It’s not really that unreasonable of them.”_

_Tony grumbled and whined and cajolled and argued to absolutely no avail. It was only when Rhodey threatened to bridal carry Tony to the shower that he finally got out of bed. _

It wasn’t that Tony didn’t already live in Middlebury. Contrary to popular belief around campus, he lived right _on campus_, in an apartment he built into the basement of his main lab. His TAs signed NDAs and were sworn to secrecy and the only ones allowed to contact him during the semester. The arrangement worked perfectly until the school hired a new provost over the summer. Nick Fury gave zero fucks about how much money Tony donated or how much prestige he would bring to Central once the portable AI he was working on became commercially viable. 

No, Nick Fury cared about _education_ and _the students_ like fucking university administrators of old. 

Tony much preferred the money grabbers most universities employed these days. 

Much to his surprise, he discovered that he kind of liked teaching. He’d always loved working with his TA’s - and the current one was the best yet - so it probably shouldn’t have surprised him, but it did. He simply hadn’t engaged with his larger student body before. He gave lectures, but never answered questions and if someone interrupted one of his video lectures to ask one, he roared at them like the fucking Wizard of Oz. 

He’d negotiated with Fury to only teach 300 and 400 level classes and let his TAs continue to take care of the intro class he was responsible for each fall term. So, sure, there were still lazy asshats that made him question the future of the planet and students he’d rather strangle than speak to, but most of the kids he worked with were… him. 

Well, him at 14 when he started MIT, but not everyone is an accelerated genius. 

They were awkward, and passionate, and frustrated with the word ‘no’, and insanely curious. Sure, some of the boys still had to learn hygiene and he’d had to have more than one conversation with a few of them about how we don’t stare at women, we speak to them, but overall? Not a shabby professional evolution. 

The second week of term he’d wandered into the coffee shop stroke bar that everyone talked about. He’d heard about Dichotomy for years, but he struggled to maintain ‘normal human schedules’, as Pepper referred to them, so he’d just never been. 

And if Peter had vaguely mentioned that Steve Rogers, the _illegally gorgeous_ history professor Tony had spotted during some orientation activity or another, hung out there most nights, well, that would just be a pervy people-watching bonus. 

It had taken him three more weeks to work up the courage to speak to the blonde god. Once Peter had supplied the name - and a whole host of enthusiasm about how he was basically the best teacher on campus and won all the teaching awards and led cross-cultural trips every summer and was one of the few out profs - Tony did the rest of his due diligence. 

This guy was not going to be a fuck-and-run situation. 

This guy, this guy was the real deal and Tony had to make sure that he was willing to take the risk. He’d run some algorithms, tested a few hypotheses, and finally did the thing he should have done all along, which was talk to Pepper. 

_“Anthony, you are ridiculous.”_

_“Yes, you’ve met me.”_

_“There isn’t only two options for relationships - fuck buddies and marriage. If you like this guy, and we all know you do, then please just ask him out. Just see where it goes. Keep it in your pants for a few weeks and talk to the man. Jesus, for a genius, you are a fucking idiot.”_

_“But I’m your fucking idiot, Pepperoni.”_

_She rolled her eyes and kissed his cheek affectionately. “For all my sins, yes you are. Now, go hit on a handsome man and leave me alone!”_

He’d nearly vomited four times the night where he asked Steve to dinner. When Steve tells it, Tony was calm, cool, and collected while Steve was a blushing, stammering, idiot. When Tony tells their meet cute, he was faking confidence entirely and hoping to any available higher powers that Steve would look past the nervous ticks and the hyperverbal habits and was so excited on the drive to the diner that he did 95 in a 40mph zone. 

Their first ‘date’ lasted until 3am, when Steve declared he had to get home or he wouldn’t be safe to drive. Tony had shown up the next night outside of Steve’s office after his night class and they’d ended up back at Steve’s to make tacos and watch Last Week Tonight. Tony kissed Steve for the first time two days later and things escalated from there. 

Now, as the second term was well underway, the entirety of campus knew that Drs. Rogers and Stark were a thing. Tony knew that Steve hated the hashtags and portmanteaus and all the other stuff that came with being a very popular couple on a college campus (he wasn’t wild about #stonysighting either, but whatever), but there wasn’t much that could be done. Except that whenever Steve got overwhelmed, Tony came up with new and exciting ways to calm him down. 

Steve was also gifted at getting Tony out of his own head. He’d learned some of Tony’s patterns alarmingly quickly and between Steve (who brought Nat and Bucky along with him into this new ‘Make Sure Tony is Fed and Watered’ mission) and Peter, Tony was actually more productive than he’d ever been. 

Who knew that hydration and proper nutrition would actually make his brain work faster. 

All told, things were very good, which meant that Tony was actively waiting for the other shoe to drop and for this all to disappear in front of him in a plume of smoke. 

“You’re thinking too much,” Steve mumbled as they collapsed together and Tony took his normal octopus-inspired snuggling position. 

“About you, yes,” Tony flirted back. 

“You’re not,” Steve corrected softly. “You stopped the minute I came. Thank you, by the way, but where did you go?”

Tony had tried lying in situations like this. In the beginning of their relationship, he’d even gotten away with it a few times. He’d learned quickly, however, that Steve had laser focus and escaping the questions became increasingly impossible. 

“To your tenure review,” Tony replied. 

“I didn’t even go to that,” Steve chuckled softly. “And I’m the one facing it in two weeks.”

“You’ll get it,” Tony whispered. “And then…”

“And then I’ll have job security? What’s the tone?”

“And then you’ll be here.”

Steve shifted, a look of complete confusion crossing his face as he forced Tony to make eye contact with him. “Use your words.”

Tony worried his bottom lip for several moments. “I’m here forever, at this college, in this place, somehow, anyway. Even if I end up taking over at the company, which I currently don’t want and my cousin is doing a good job, this is where my lab is. If you’re here forever now too, it’ll just be hard when this is over.”

“Who,” Steve growled and Tony felt the vibrations through their bodies, “the _living fuck_ said this is over?”

“No one, yet, but you will soon,” Tony said. 

“So glad you can read my fucking mind,” Steve’s voice started climbing in volume. “Tell me, _genius_, what am I thinking about right now?”

“Well, from that tone, I’m thinking you disagree with my assessment of the inevitability of the demise of our partnership,” Tony’s tone contained much more bravado than he felt. 

“Damn _fucking right_ I disagree with that assessment, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Tony, and what’s even more serious is that I think you do, too.”

Now it was Tony’s turn to be confused. “What?”

Steve's voice was firm, but quiet. “Tony, are you happy with me?”

“Of course I am.”

“Are you still attracted to me?”

“Jesus, Steven, _still_? What kind of, of course I am,” Tony pursed his lips incredulously. 

“Are you seeing anyone else?”

“What living fuck?” Tony spat. “No, you bumbling oaf, I am-”

Steve cut him off with a kiss. “Then why are you creating an exit strategy when we could be creating a settlement plan.”

Tony blinked a few times. “Translate the historian, please.”

Steve grinned, a soft version of his smile that warmed Tony’s bones. “I love you. I know I do. And I hate dating and I hate games and the best advice that Bucky gave me when he settled down with Nat was that you should stay in a relationship that makes you feel happy and safe until it doesn’t. Keep moving towards permanence as soon as it feels right and don’t second guess things as long as you’re happy and safe.” He kissed Tony, a lingering, slightly sloppy, form of affection. 

“You make me unbelievably happy and I really like who I am with you. You’ve never shown me you feel differently, so I can only guess that you’re trying to leave because somewhere in your steamer ship full of baggage, you’ve decided I’ll leave eventually?”

Tony mumbled, not willing to acknowledge the truth in Steve’s words. 

“Baby, I’m petrified too.”

“You are?” Tony was shocked. 

Steve laughed. “Of course I am! This is scary as shit, baby, but I know that you are the one that makes me feel like we can do it. That we can build something really lovely and I want to try, I am trying, that’s what I thought we were doing until you just preemptively broke up with me.”

Tony was quiet for a minute. “As long as we’re safe and happy?”

Steve nodded. 

“I am both safe and happy.”

“Me too, baby,” Steve whispered, “me too.”

____________________________

“Babe!” Steve yelled down the stairs to Tony’s workshop. “Did you remember to get Peter a card?”

“Of course I didn’t, Steven, it’s like you don’t even know me,” Tony yelled back. 

Steve sighed and looked over at Rosie the Rhumba, a modified cleaning robot that Tony had gifted him with the year before. “Rosie, he’s going to be the death of me.” Rosie bleeped back sympathetically. 

“If I come down there and you are still covered in motor oil, I will end you,” Steve yelled. “We have to be walking out this door in five minutes.”

“He’s met me,” Tony yelled back. “He knows I’m never on time. DUM-E, I swear to God, I’m donating you to the 100 class next term, I said no fire extinguisher.”

“TONY,” Steve bellowed. “WHY DOES DUM-E HAVE THE FIRE EXTINGUISHER WHEN YOU SHOULD BE IN A SUIT AND TIE.”

“I am in a suit and tie,” Tony yelled back. “DUM-E is reacting to my smoking hotness.”

Steve barked out a laugh. “Three minutes or I’m driving the McLaren.”

A few noises that sounded like crashes sounded from the basement and Steve smirked to himself. Five years of marriage and Tony still hadn’t figured out that Steve hated driving standard. 

“I’m here,” Tony burst through the basement door with only three smudges of oil on his face. “Let’s go.”

Steve kissed him firmly and pointed to the bathroom. “Face. Fix it. There’s going to be pictures.”

Tony rolled his eyes dramatically and yet sarcastically, which Steve had still not figured out how he pulled off. “It’s not like getting a PhD is hard. I have six of them.”

“You such a fucking asshat, Stark,” Steve responded with a chuckle. 

“And what does that say about the man who loves the asshat?” Tony emerged from the bathroom with a clean face and a dirty smirk. 

“It says I lost my mind in a coffee shop eight years ago and I’m never getting it back.”

“I love you, too,” Tony grinned and grabbed his husband’s hand. “But you are never driving my car.”

Steve laughed and gladly allowed himself to be dragged to the garage, knowing that later on that night, he’d be happily dragging Tony to bed.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [Twitter](http://www.twitter.com/betheflame1) or [Tumblr](http://betheflame.tumblr.com) for more on these yahoos. You can also submit prompts and cajole me into writing faster - it usually works.


End file.
